Commander Marius and The 11 Legion and its Primaris
by mafer173
Summary: This is the story of Marius (an Imperial Pilot), who meets the 11. Legion of the Astartes, consisting of female Space marines (read my bold type at the beginning of the document about that). It s his adventure with a horde of Space Marines and how his beliefs are drawn into question by the unfamiliar surrounding.
1. Chapter 1 Elysiarum 5

**I do not collect the Warhammer 40k figures myself, but I did read quite a few of the books set in the Universe and I always had the feeling that fighter pilots and women did not find enough proper recognition in the stories. When I heard from a friend (a huge Warhammer 40k geek), that there were only 18 of the 20 Primarks mentioned, I had an idea: If the Emperor is really super-intelligent, couldn´t it be that he managed to reduplicate his DNA as female, meaning two X chromosomes instead of an XY set. That easy as hell. In single cell stadium that is already (technically) possible deemed it possible, so I wrote this as a nice combination of my two points of criticism. Right now, it´s just the first chapter, but I might want to continue this, if it works out. I don´t believe in writer´s block, so hit me with suggestions.**

Marius had turned 24 on the day received his orders for the fifth deployment. It would take the young Commander of a Regiment of irregular assault bombers to a small planet named Elysiarum 5.  
It consisted of men and women from a migrant fleet. They had lost their homes to various unpleasant factors, including Tyrranids, Dark Eldar and Orks. Marius himself had descended from a line of successful surgeons. He completed his studies at the schola of his planet with many different trainings in different areas of expertise. He aspired to be a surgeon as well, but did not achieve this goal, when Dark Eldar came to ransack the system he grew up in.  
Luckily, he was on another world, mourning the death of his mother. When he heard of the fights he signed up for combat. In the mania and insecurity of the battlefield he was promoted to a high rank in the medical units.  
In the last minutes of the war, he lost his eyesight to shrapnel tearing through his face, cutting his hopes for his own future down. He was augmented and received a pair of Lord-General Gaunt eyes, named after one of the heroes of the Sabbath Worlds Crusade. Then Marius signed up for the 125th Migrant Legion. Being short on proper officers the Departmento stuck him into the commanding position of three fighter wings. He was in command of a small group of Lightning Migrants, a special assault –bomber hybrid. The fighters were specialized for use in the vacuum of space and enlarged to fullfill the role of both a bomber and a fighter plane. The assault plane schemes were transferred to the factory ships of the migrant fleet and production for the advanced models began only two years after the fall of the Segmentum Utopium. The fighter was a regular space and void fighter, equipped with three guided rockets, a mini-rocket projector as well as additional ports for further more specialized equipment. For void combat there is a twin-linked Melter installed into the nose. For atmosphere combat it is supported by a twin-linked heavy bolter. The rear defence is a four barrelled lasturret, operated by a targeting servitor, given out by the Mechanicum. These beasts of void combat where a necessary construction, as the migrant fleet needed the functionality and striking force of both a bomber and an assault plane at the same time, lacking proper pilots and the time to train them.

His new eyes make him more suitable than most other pilots to fly the modified planes, as he has better night vision and tactical computers in them, than the helmets of the Migrant fleet can offer. The port, drilled into his left temple offers a perfect connection between pilot and interface.

He completed his first forty tours over the Atalanta Planetary siege and receiving three promotions connected to a few medals on his uniform. He never was able to find good friends in any environment. He once came in as a close second in drinking game against two inquisitors, a Battle Sister and two Space Wolves, losing to the Chapter master of the Space Wolves. That was the closest thing to fun he ever had, until he woke up in a power-armour-powered, rib crushing hug by a wasted Space Wolf. After that encounter, he decided to stay clear of the Adaptus Sororitas and the Space Wolves, worried about their uncontrollable rage, something most migrants view as useless waste of oxygen.

The deployment on Elysiarum 5 was domed from the beginning. The small world had been given to a small group of Eldar civilians, according to several contracts it wasn´t even supposed to be returned to the Imperium, having no real value. Some Administratum idiot found out and managed to get the Departmento Munitiorum to send out a small "liberation force". (He was promptly promoted.)  
Marius unit was part of the deployment. In orbit of the small world the forces of the imperium encountered a band of Dark Eldars and a battle barge of an unknown space marine chapter. When Marius saw through the window of his small space fighter, what was going on, he for the first time is generally concerned about the Emperor's protection. Never before had he seen this much debris in space, making manoeuvring with the small lightly armoured fighters nearly impossible. The Lord Admiral had a different opinion about what the small fighters were supposed to do in this situation. So, he ordered to attack the Dark Eldars, as the battle barge had no human skin and blood attached to its armour, no huge and menacing warp signature emitting from its core or any obscenities drawn or welded to its sides. Oh, and it didn´t yell its name at a mind-numbing volume, so it was no threat at all, at least no directly. When approaching the barge through a safe flight corridor, Marius could briefly see its name tag, reading "Preying Mantis", followed by an XI, indicating the 11. Legion.

The void around the Dark Eldar is full of assault planes, void fighters and void bombers. The Dark Eldar do not use a lot of them and the Imperials Navy can only deploy 3 void bombers and 16 Stricker Migrants. But the Battle Barge unleashes a surprising amount of Space Marine void crafts including at least two dozen Thunderhawks, almost one hundred different gunships and landing crafts.

The Imperial Guard Fighter Wings are told to engage the support fleet of the eldar Dreadnoughts and the Capital Ship, while the frigates of the Imperial Navy and the Space Marine Battle Barge would take care of the Dreadnought and the Capital Ship.

(Change of the PoV)

Marius breathes heavily. Right now, he is pulling his seventh assault run on a light cruiser of the Dark Eldar. His light antimatter torpedos are depleted. All he has now are the front-mounted laser cannons and two heavy plasma bombs in special non-standard links on the lower side of his void craft. In the first three strafing runs he had an entire unit of Migrants. Now he is alone with his attack. He knows instinctively, that he will die sooner than later. Usually some other pilot would be saying something nice now, but them being dead, it is only Marius and his curses. For his planned assault Marius flies down a small path in the point-blank defence of the Dark Eldar ship. His flight path enables him to drop his bombs onto a structural weakness between the engines in the rear. He takes a straight run towards the Space Marine battle barge ahead of him, as the Plasma bombs gravitate towards the warp signature of the ships´ engine bay. His computer gives the information that the detonation was successful. The explosion of the light cruiser drives a shock into the bones of the young commander. On the rear view he can see the cruiser dying. When he focuses to the front again, he can feel a tugging in his gut. Something is going wrong. Horribly wrong. Then the final implosion of the light cruiser almost knocks Marius out. He manages to stay awake, when the discharge of the warp crystals aboard the Dark Eldar ship tear through his mind and knock him out for good. His last sight is a void engine of his own Migrant accelerating past him

When he wakes up, he can see a Thunderhawk crossing above him. Quickly marius checks his SOS beacon, which the Migrant fleet refused to integrate into the long range vox systems. It is sending. The face in the other fighter is totally different from most of the other Space Marines he ever saw.

Which doesn´t mean much, because he only ever encountered Space Wolves and a small group of Salamanders.

A magnetic field pulls the Lightning Migrant towards the Thunderhawk, apparently equipped for search and rescue. Marius drifts away again.  
 _At least the eyes didn´t fail me this time._  
Actually, the new mechanical Gaunt eyes, as he calls them, never failed him before and are even more reliable than the original eyes, he just keeps saying that to soothe his own mind from being scared or messing up a mission. Fifteen fighters of the migrant fleet lost, fifteen pilots dead, Marius could be number 16 soon and five frigates one transporter and a cruiser were destroyed, before the Vox antenna of Marius´ Migrant was hit by a Psion beam, supercharging and breaking the capacitors for the long-range equipment. But a Dark Eldar invasion force felt the Emperor's wrath. "Some fegging idiot is going to get a promotion in the near future for the designing of an ingenious battle plan. I hope I get to punch him, when he reaches the Emperor's Embrace.", Marius grumbles.

He looks down and sees that an integral part of his joystick is lodged in his stomach and the blood is frozen on the flight suit and the joystick. _At least_ _the intestines are still there where they belong._

He drifts away again, when the Migrant docks into the designated gear. In the vox of his helmet a young female sounding voice appearing on the close-range hailer, telling him that everything would be okay.


	2. Chapter 2 The Infirmary

**Here is chapter number 2. I already got some Feedback. Thanks to BlackPhantom247 for the Exchange we had. If you have Questions or good advice, write a comment. Merry Christmas!**

When Marius woke up again, he isn´t in his flight seat anymore. He is in an infirmary aboard a space ship. He can smell the iron and air fresheners, as if they were a part of his life. He looks around. He is in a bed that is separated by a curtain. Marius felt weird. The equipment around his bed is definitely standard for a heavy cruiser or the ship of a rich Terran lord. He tried to sit up recognized the sheer size of the bed. In the migrant fleet it would have been given out to families, that would sleep in one of the very cold rooms for them to share. It was installed on an iron frame, that reminds him of the brig in the schola he was trained in, just way more comfortable. The table next to the bed is just as enlarged. His flight suit and the helmet are clean, repaired and nicely stacked next to his bed. Even his belt is still there, with the holster and all the utility sockets for the equipment. His dog-tags are missing. They aren´t around his neck, or on the mattress next to him.

Marius slings the sheets back and tries to get up. As soon as he is standing, he pushes the curtains open. While doing that he stumbles and falls on his face. A sharp pain shoots through his upper body. Under pain, he rolls over and sits up again. In the Migrant Fleet all pilots and soldiers, that are supposed to encounter Space Marines, are taught to be careful around them, because some can be unforgiving about the smallest mistake.

Behind the curtains, he can see the entirety of the infirmary. It is large and contains several dozen beds of which only his and another are occupied by patients. It is twice as large as the largest cathedral to the Emperor on the Migrant Fleet. It's the most spacious room he has seen since the Tyranids ate his home world.

His stomach starts acting up and Marius sees his life flashing before his eyes. He is in a horrible condition. There is no one in the infirmary,that could help him, so he limbs towards the desk at the entrance, where the counter of the nurses is. When approaching he cannot see anyone. When he somehow manages to the front desk, he glances over the counter, that is proud two meters high. He pulls himself up to look over the counter and sees a group of snickering space marines in power armour, crouching behind the tall counter. He feels the need to slap his head. Space Marines, as lords of war, demand respect and he can remember how fifteen pilots of the migrant fleet were forcibly recruited for the servitor program of the Iron Hands. Marius falls to his knees and bows to the marines on the other side of the counter.

 _Please Emperor, make the them uninterested in my capabilities as pilot or potential as a servitor without a brain._

\- "I great you, oh mighty lords. Spare my puny brain the lobotomy, as I am far more useful in a sentient state", Marius states

One of the armoured figures gets up and grunts: "Do I look like some amateur physician? I am an Apothecary of the XI Legion of the Space Marines. Kneel all you want human."

Marius kneels even deeper and mutters, now deeply scared: "Yes, my lord I didn´t mean to insult your greatness as one of the emperor's prodigious sons."

The room goes quiet except for a tech-skull floating by, emitting a humming sound. Then the Apothecary slowly starts to snicker and says: "Although we are the children of the Emperor, we are not his sons." The other suits of armour join in to the laughter, with Marius growing more confused by the second. " _Do I need a Commissioner with a bolt gun, or is this a joke, by some Space Marines to tick me off?_ ", he thinks to himself, as he keeps kneeling just to be sure.  
The Apothecary laughs quietly through the rebreather and grabs a dossier on the table. It contains one single piece of paper and Marius dog tags. The Apothecary drops them in front of Marius and reads the dossier: "Commander Marius 1734. Weird surname." The helmet slowly motions upwards focusing Marius on the ground and demands: "Explain."

"It is my inhabitant number from the Migrant Fleet. We use These randomised 4-digit numbers instead of surnames to prevent the creation of Clans or the development of supremacy structures. The members of the defense force of ta Habitat ship have 4 Digits as their ID, the regular Population carries 9 numbers. It gives us a distinct identity against misunderstandings happening due to repetitive first names and wierds out creautures of the warp, if they do break into our ships. I admit that it is a little special to deal with.", Marius elaborates.

The Space Marine releases something, every comedian in the Imperial Guard would call a "Power Sigh" (if you catch a bad day for that joke, someone will just be shot). Then the marine groans: "Feg, that´s messed up." The others nod in agreement.

 _No, it isn´t, I even volunteered._ Marius grumbles to himself, but only faintly says: "I guess… Everyone tends to call me Commander Marius."

The Apothecary throws the dossier over his shoulder, where the other marines hurry to catch it. A Terminator pattern Space armour surprises everyone, when it leaps 2 metres into the air to catch the dossier, crushes the counter when landing and rips the photo in the dossier out of its stamps and throws the ransacked folder into the face of the next Space Marine, yelling: "Mine" at the same time. The scene is almost ridiculous. Until the petty brawl suddenly freezes. Heavy steps are approaching from behind. An angry voice demands: "Quit acting like pre-schola girls. This is embarrassing."

The four Space Marines kneel just as quickly as Marius did when he saw the Lords of War behind the now wrecked counter. Marius is confused as in which he is supposed to kneel and doesn´t move, until the Apothecary cusses under the breath: "You´re facing the wrong direction." Instead of allowing Marius to turn around by himself, the Terminator grabs him by the shirt, lifts up the kneeling pilot and spins him around. Marius bows even deeper.

The load voice demands: "Why to my dad´s sweet ass-cheeks is he bowing? Especially after eating his own joystick." One of the Space Marines mutters: "He started it…" The voice snaps: "Shut it, Regina. You want another 100 years of scout duty?" Two heavy steps later, a large hand is placed on the poorly kempt hair of the Commander. The voice intonates a basic blessing of the empire: "The Emperor loves thee, and has a plan for thee, Commander 1734. Get up." The Terminator gets cocky and comments: "Everyone calls him Commander Marius." The voice groans: "Well, Commander Marius, get up then and show your face." _Please don´t make it a lobotomy. I could even handle a female space marine now. Just not a lobotomy by some angry Apothecary._

The young soldier gets up and stares at a waist line. His time in void crafts made him grow a little more, giving him a hight of about 2 metres 10, in Gothic system 6' 9''. On the last weigh-in he had the mandatory weight of 98 kilograms, originating from his prolonged fitness training in heightened gravity, to better his performance in supersonic accelerations. He can´t see a face, so he looks up to see a bright smile, framed by long silky dark hair.

The view reminds him of the face of the man painted onto every wall in every Emperor´s Chapell. Except for the chest that is restricting his view of the face. The face starts beaming with a radiant smile and offers: "Hello. I am the Eleventh child of the Emperor, Victoria. The only of the loyal Primarchs that didn´t die and that isn´t lost in the warp, webway of whatnot. And the only female with my twin sister. She shot herself, after our Father had our existance wiped from the face of the Imperial Archives."

 _What? Okay that has to be a deep space joke. Definitely. Either that or I am going really crazy._ Marius is thinking really hard and doesn´t notice anything happening around him at all. The other Space Marines get up as well. The Terminator comments: "Now you broke him." The Terminator waves his huge armoured hand in front of Marius face and asks: "Now is a bad time to take off our helmets, right?"

\- "Why?", Marius asks, "Are you all women? Cause I am pretty sure that Space Marines are 100% male."

One of the Space Marines steps forward and takes off her helmet. "I am Regina. Commander of the scouts. You saved my dropship during one of your runs three days ago. I wanted to thank you in person", she says.

Marius just goes dark. He can hear the voices around him grunt in surprise and disappointment, when he hits the deck.


	3. Chapter 3 Marius' new task

Chapter 3:

 **Here is chapter 3. Thank you for the ongoing support!**

Marius wakes up again. He is in bed again, with the blanket covering him up to the neck. He looks around. The Infirmary is now bustling with people. Most are crowding around the two occupied beds. Only half of them are Space Marines but the crowd is very motivated. Someone is even giving out refreshments for others.

The other patient is a tall woman. The curtain is drawn back and she is reading something out loud. Her voice is soothing and nobody appears to be listening to the story she is telling. Marius tries to move but the blanket is restraining him. He cannot move an inch. "Hey", he mumbles, "what´s up with this blanket? Did you staple it to the frame?" The Apothecary looks at him. This time without a helmet. _Now that´s just great. Did she cut off my arms?_

The Apothecary grabs two scouts, that are sitting on Marius bed and tosses them of the bed. At the same time, Marius' arms are released and he can move again. He flips the sheet and looks at his body. The injury has completely healed. Only a slight scar remains, that looks a little like the head of an eagle. He looks at the Apothecary and asks: "How? How long was I out?" The Apothecary drops a folder on Marius' head and says: "Now get up. I need the bed for other people, especially Space Marines with brain damage. With those words, she kicks one of the scouts of the bed again.

Marius hurries to stand up from the bed. He is busy making his bed when the whole room turns silent. Marius looks up and wonders, what is going on, when everyone in the room even the Servitors fixates on him. The eyes slowly wander down his body and fixate on his torso and lower.

He carefully takes a step back and looks at his body in a mirror. He is wearing nothing but a skimpy loincloth. "How, in the… did that end up on me?" The Apothecary shrugs and explains: "Your clothes couldn´t be saved even with prayers to the Emperor, so he gave you the only clothes we had, that would fit your, uhm, 'different' physique." During your recovery, we organized a working uniform for your purposes." She drops an expensive uniform on the table right next to him.

Marius picks up the uniform and notices the golden shoulder elements indicating his rank as a commander. It's a dress uniform, something the irregular units of the Migrant Fleet never received. The insignia of his awards and medals are sewn to the heavy uniform on the in his chest area covering the entire designated section on the left side. The cloth is black and heavy. It is definitely salvaged from a Commissioner, or modeled after the uniforms of the Commissariat. If the next Commissioner he meets has no sense of humor, Marius could catch a bullet.

The shirt underneath is simple and from a two-piece flight suit. It is colored in a dark blue, with a diagonal flap to overlap the fire-resistant material. The pair of cargo pants is in dark blue as well and sewed of fire-resistant material. The belt is luckily still Marius cockpit conversion, with the las gun fixed to his left thigh and the laspacks on the other side with the knife. While Marius pulls the pants on, he asks the Apothecary: "Where did you get this uniform?" The Space Marine next to her ( _What was her name? Regina?)_ comments: "I prepared it for you to have as many functions as humanly possible. The coat is bulletproof even to bolt shells, the trousers and the shirts are heat- resistant and the undershirt, well its an undershirt." She looks at the surprised Marius and asks with a worried look: "Did I do too much?"

Marius could have sworn, he heard several Bolter being cocked, a few Powerfists power up, and a missile system activates at the same time. Behind Regina, a Dreadnought even aims a Megabolter at Marius' head.

The scared Commander smiles to hide his panic and says: "Yes, it's awesome. I always wanted a dress-uniform, especially with all these perks." He wants to bow but is stopped by a shake of heads behind Sister-Sergeant Regina. Marius gulps and thinks desperately, how he can repay the favor. Then he remembers his fathers´ knife in the holster. The man received it from a Catachan, who died on the battlefield. Its too large to use for a regular soldier, but Marius always carries it around with him. He pulls it from the belt and offers it to the Scout Sergeant. She takes it and smiles.

He closes the shirt and pulls on the coat. It's only slightly heavier than a usual flight suit, which is due to the shoulder pads made of pure gold. He closes the belt buckle and polishes it with a tissue from a dispenser close by. It shows the scene of a tyrranid hive fleet feasting upon a planet. This is how every soldier of the Fleet is supposed to remember, that he didn´t choose this life of his own free will. Then he grabs the hat, that is left. It's a simple guardsmen cap, to be worn instead of a helmet.

Marius looks in the mirror and subconsciously starts smiling. The uniform is the most expensive outfit he ever wore. He likes and decides to keep. He must have stared at his reflection for too long because the all too familiar voice of the Primaries sounds behind him: "Are we done now? Can we talk business now or do you need some more time?"

Marius flinches and for the first time in ages, he turns bright red. He turns around and again looks at the waistline of the Primaries. Before he can kneel, she grabs his head with the left hand and snaps: "Don´t you dare, kneel like a little idiot. It ruins the mood if the smallest guy in the room feels the need to make himself smaller. It feels awkward. Stop it for the Emperor's love."

 _Ouch. That went to shit quickly. Note to me: Don´t get on her bad side._ Marius starts struggling. "It doesn´t help, that everyone can crush your skull with the left hand", he grumbles quietly. She slightly presses against his temple. It makes his skull crack and he starts to fidget. He has a lot of religious respect for the Space Marines and he should gladly offer up his life to their order. The Primaries Victoria drops the scared pilot and then suddenly apologizes: "I didn´t mean to… Are you hurt Commander 1734? Its apparently my Warp conditioned weakness, that I sometimes lose myself to anger." Marius holds his head, that feels like a cracked egg. "Warp-defect? That´s something a void ship can have.", he mumbles. The Primaries laughs. She slaps his shoulder with the force of the blast-back of a main gun. Marius falls to his knees and groans: "I am not cut out for the work with superhuman soldiers." He gets up and stands at attention, making himself as tall as possible.

The Primaries has lost all interest in the fight and smiles brightly. Marius smiles, definitely faked, but in a good mood anyway. She states joyfully: "Follow me. I have something nice to show you. And I´ll have my Memorators introduce you to the most important knowledge you require to work for me and my Legion. I need a good flight instructor as we can´t count on the Forges of Mars to teach my Techmarines and pilots. I found a few thankful techpriests, but their piloting skills are rather lacking. All they do is sing: 'For the Emperor' and 'Praise the Omnissiah'. Then they plug in a Servitor and switch to Autopilot. It works, but the logistics can´t afford any more Servitors or fighters. So, we scurry around and look for viable instructors. So far, we found two Imperial Navy Captains, a Commissioner-Lieutenant and a scout from the Tanith. The Commissioner committed suicide in the Infirmary, the two Captains are always fighting and the scout just disappeared, as soon as he had a chance." She waves impatiently, signaling him to follow him into the corridor leading away from the Infirmary. The Apothecary grabs the back of the uniform and remembers Marius: "No lifting above 4 tonnes for the next three weeks, to ensure the stable healing of the organs and tissue." _I can´t even lift 400 kilograms._ Marius smiles and agrees.

He then hurries to follow the Primarch, although he doesn´t know her too well, he is interested in what she wants to show him. And the Space Marines aren´t yelling profanities or wearing human skin, like the Chaos Marines of Geratomro. And they haven´t sterilized Marius yet, so they aren´t from the Tau Empire, which Marius finds out when a Space Marine walks by wearing only a loincloth. With his almost ten years in the army, he had no contact with women in the last six of them, Marius reacts like a sex-depraved teenager, he makes a few awkward attempts to hide his reaction, but it doesn´t work too well and the Space Marine starts giggling and the Primarch laughs about the young commander´s awkward posture: "That´s a first. Usually, this doesn´t happen around us." "You usually are wearing inches of steel and other armor plates and are carrying automatic bolters around, like they are toys. I guess that would be a very awkward boner", Marius counters. The Space Marine laughs and walks on. She disappears into the shower room halfway down the corridor.

Marius follows the Primarch through the corridors. At some point, they reach the elevator leading to the flight deck. The Primarch calls the elevator and leans next to the door. Marius stands around awkwardly and tries to stand at attention. She watches him very closely. Suddenly she asks: "You are not married, are you?" Marius is surprised. As a reaction, he stutters: "No I am not. Not at all actually. That didn´t come to be yet. Never even thought of it. W-w-why?" She suddenly grins and wants to say something when the door of the elevator opens and a horde of Terminators and a Dreadnought walk out. The Dreadnought steps out with its upper body turned, not noticing Marius, who is standing in the way. He barely manages to dive between its legs and avoid power claws, that are swung carelessly. _Feg, Feg Fe-._ Then they are gone with the power claws and the carefree movement.

The Primarch looks at Marius with respect: "Call me Victoria", she offers and steps into the elevator. He follows and answers: "Yes, Myla… Victoria. I guess you can call me Marius then, or by my call sign 'Nightmare'. Marius is definitely preferred." The Primarch chuckles and asks: "How do you get such a callsign?" Marius leans back and sighs: "That´s a long story. It involves a lot of shooting, dying and flying. I got it from enemies of the Imperium and the controller of the time decided to keep it. And then it stuck. I apparently represent a certain entity in some weird "Hail thee oh Emperor" cult. In hindsight, I am really impressed that the Inquisition did not summarily execute me." The Primarch takes a minute before she says anything again.

The elevator moves in a diagonal direction then rattle to a halt. After a short delay, it starts moving again. In horizontal motion, it accelerates alongside the axis of the barge and carries the two to the hangar in the middle section of the Barge. The Primarch looks at Marius with curious eyes. Suddenly she starts a conversation: "You are less respectful towards Space Marines than most Imperials. Why is that?" "Distrust and a little Disdain", Marius answers coldly. The Primarch grows to her full 5 meters and towers over the young soldier. Through her cold stare, she demands: "Care to elaborate?"

Marius tries to withstand the stare but has to break off. He can feel the temperature of his eyeballs drop if he looks at those cold eyes. Marius focuses on the floor and gives a short version: "The migrant fleet used to be three times the size it is now. The Iron Hands and Blood Ravens came and took what they could use. We lost all our valuable relics, we were going to trade with the individual destinations, leaving us to cower before the Departmento Munitorum. The Iron Hands took almost two million civilians, soldiers and pilots for their Servitor program and dismantled the depopulated ships together with Adeptus Mechanicus. I don´t specifically dislike Space Marines. It's just… who do you hate for taking your sister and friends into slaughterhouses?" Marius loses form and slouches against the walls of the elevator. The doctrine of the Empire of Man is to willingly give your life for the lords, be feudal lords or Space Marines, but losing your home and spending your life in the void, changes the perspective.

The cold stare breaks, a pressed voice filled with guilt and sadness asks: "You lost someone to those cullings?" Marius nods. Suddenly the Primarch hugs the shorter man and says: "Don´t be too hard on them. They don´t know it better." The voice of the tall woman is very faint next to Marius' ear. She holds the Commander tight. Marius' eyes start to water. A single tear rolls down his face.

She must have sensed it on her shoulder when it falls from his cheek. She grabs his shoulders and holds him at arm's length. "Do you resent me?", she asks. Marius takes one of her hands, picks it off his shoulder and asks: "How could I? You are the first imperial official, that won´t have me a shot for misconduct. And I…" Before he can finish a vibration shakes the elevator.

It's doors open to a large hangar. Marius void fighter is hanging on chains from the ceiling. Its landing gear has been jacked off by and the parts are being blessed by two tech-priests. Five Techmarines are taking apart the nose of the fighter. One of them got a hold of the main cogitator for the radar system, installed just in front of the cockpit, and is trying to unplug it. She is trying very hard to be helpful, but the radar is the only system, that wasn´t damaged in the void above Elysiarum. The Primarch knows about that too and tells the unarmoured Marine: "Take care of the Vox-system. It needs quite a lot of love." The group looks at Marius and one of them says: "Yes. A lot of love." Then the group chuckles maniacally. Even the techpriests join in on the laughter. Marius laughs too. The joke is old to him and a lot of techpriests and ground personnel have said that before, after some weird deployments. He once returned with an Ork _Fighta_ stuck in his left turbo engine. The ground crew was still in shock when the Ork pilot crawled out and Marius best friend pummelled him to death.

The Primarch grabs the apparent Sergeant of the Techmarines by the shoulder, spins her around and presents Marius: "This is your new flight instructor. He´ll be teaching you how to fly a plane. Don´t make him angry. He bites. Or shoots." Then she leans closer to the Sergeant and hisses in a tone everybody can hear: "He´s mine. Don´t touch him."

-End of Chapter-


	4. Chapter 4 Flight School and Visions

**Took me a few months to get this done. Hit me up with constructive criticism! And help me out with the writing style and point out mistakes in case there are some.**

The Sergeant looks at the young pilot in surprise. This surprise can be seen in all of the other soldiers faces. Then the Techpriests start snickering. One of them says: "He can't teach Space Marines anything. Only the servants of the Omnissiah know how to teach Space Marines. He merely knows how to die and how to destroy property, that doesn't belong to him. He is no teacher." Marius is a little annoyed by the Techpriest. He mumbles: "Go love your toaster, asshole."

The Marines in the hangar chuckle and the Techpriest's face turns into a bright red colour. Marius points at the Marines and asks: "Am I supposed to teach you? Or will I be teaching someone else?" The Marines line up and yell in a deafening tone: "Yes, Sir!" They could have had a career as drill sergeants in the Imperial Guard and no one would have asked a question. Apart from their size of course. The Primarch gets in the line as well and asks for training: "If you are going to work with those Space Marines, you won't have a problem teaching me, right?" She smiles brightly. Marius smiles back. The Primarch reminds him of his time on a shrine world during the Sabbath Crusade. It was the best time of his life, when he got to know a few Space Wolves and Battle Sisters. They weren't really friends, but during the ten months of deployment on that planet, some got really close.

Marius tries to put on a serious look. "Let's do a dry test first. You'll sit in the cockpit and I'll walk you through the processes involved in flying a plane. If you are successful with the controls, we can get right into flying the actual thing", he offers. The Marines salute and the Sergeant asks: "Do we start now?" Marius points at his plane and says: "Well my assault plane is mostly crashed, so we will have to find something else to do it with.

One of the Techpriests pulls the cover off one of his/her projects. It's a Thunderbird gunship for Space Marines. With some modifications that are foreign to Marius, but he won't ask any questions. Some of them are very corrupt or corrupt enough to be shot twice by the Inquisition. A friend died because he asked about a weapon called Rupture Cannon, that was fired into a trench, killing several dozen soldiers, but destroying an enemy assault.

He opens the door and turns on the lights in the rear section of the ship. The pieces of equipment and the docking clamps for Space Marine armour are clean and well-polished. There are no cables hanging out of holes in the wall and there is not a single line carved into the wall next to the cockpit. He sits down into the chair of the co-pilot and waves to the seat next to him. "First one. Take a seat", he says, "Let's start easy for today." The Techmarines and the Primarch have a real fist fight in the rear section of the Thunderhawk. Marius turns around and yells: "Hey! I may not be as strong as you, but you better stop!"

The Marines and the Primarch actually stop, leaving Marius dumbfounded. "I, um, I… I didn't think that would work", he stutters. He needs a moment to recollect, then he says: "I guess we should start with the Sergeant, right?" As he fidgets, the Sergeant gets into the seat next to him and prepares. She buckles up and grabs the joystick with both hands. "Don't press any buttons!", Marius warns, but the Sergeant pushes an ominous red trigger on the joystick. An energy beam shreds through the armour plates on the hangar bay doors, luckily not cutting through them all the way.

Marius yells: "I said don't push any buttons!" The Sergeant reacts surprised, trying to intimidate the angry, shorter man: "I didn't press any buttons." Before she can say anything rude, a fuming Techpriest waltzes in, waving his mechanical arms around, shouting something along the lines of stupidity and complete disregard for safety regulations. "Calm down", the Primarch says. Marius is scared. To him the weapon is scary. He can't make heads or tails out of the weapons in the craft and half of them have a seal of the Inquisition. He staggers out of the Thunderhawk and sits down outside. The Primarch follows him up to the big box, where the Servitor of his rear gun is rolling his eyes. The Primarch grabs his shoulder and stops him from moving. "Where are you going?", she asks. Marius looks at her and answers: "I will look for another way to train them. We can't use a Thunderhawk. Especially with those crazy weapons. I will eventually kill the entire ship!", Marius answers, very stressed and worried.

In his society there is a very old saying, dating back to the foundation of the first colonies on his homeworld: "Don't do anything, your thane wouldn't do." Thanes were planetary lords that governed the regular citizens for a long time. During the Great Crusade, when the conquest forces under the Emperor himself arrived in , the Thanes wanted to wage war. The decision did not last very long, as the population was easily swayed to obey the Emperor and to lay down their arms. The corrupt Thanes were slow cooked in an execution called "deep-frying". (It is practiced to this day aboard the migrant fleet, for extremely heretical entities. The screams of witches are very satisfying to the ears of a population that spends its life on ships. At least that's what the Arbiter says.)

The quote has since been modified to suit the concepts of the modern Empire, when the Thanes were reintroduced as an elected Commander of each of our habitat- ships. They are elected for ten years and are given two close assistants. It's very technical. Marius sister was the first Thane. She was let go after an incident involving old technology.

Marius leans over the ammo crate and thinks hard. How did he learn to fly a jet? Then it comes back to him.

Simulus. His drill sergeant would give him a broken broom and an old chair. Wasn't great, but he couldn't accidently murder anyone.

He runs towards the closest Mechanicus and asks: "Can you build a simulator?" The man looks him dead in the face and asks: "Why should I?" Somehow Marius doesn't feel like dealing with the stuff of a toaster fetishist, so he asks: "Do you want to end up like the other men and women, that got in the way of a fegging laser?" The Mechanicus looks a lot like a dead fish and answers: "The flesh is weak. Why should I be scared of a laser, if I can be rebuilt?" "You'll be kicked into the void?", Marius answers. He knows that there are simulus chambers aboard some of the Battle Barges. He just needs access to them, to run the tests and training, without threatening anyone. The Mechanicum Techpriest ponders a little and then answers: "There is something I could do about that, but you'll have to be patient." With those words he turns around and leaves. He is followed by a flock of chanting assistants and adepts. Marius flashes a rude gesture behind his back and shakes his head. This trouble ends the training earlier than expected. Marius walks towards the elevator to return to Infirmary. The Space Marines catch up to him, while he is walking along the hangar deck towards the elevator. The Primarch stops him and spins him around. "You want to come along? We're going to the training halls to complete our rites of long-range and close-range fighting." Marius tries to think of a polite excuse not to go. But every single one of them appears to be useless on a battle barge. "Fine. I'll go to the training ground with you", he gives in. The Marines are extremely motivated and overjoyed on their way to training. The Primarch speeds up to something that appears to be her normal walking speed. The space marines jog alongside her, but Marius is screwed. He has to start running, to keep up.

The marines start a long sermon about the glory of the Emperor and self-esteem for regular citizens of the Empire. It feels awkward to be the only not enhanced in the lot. At the elevator, Marius runs into a Terminator pattern armour and tumbles backwards.

A Space Marine tries to catch the falling man, but Marius hits his head on the heavy glove and falls unconscious.

Again, he wakes up somewhere else. This time the place itself already leaves an impression, before, Marius can open his eyes. There is a strong aura of gold in his eyes, even with the eyes closed. "Commander Marius 1734. I have no time for this shit. Open your eyes. So, we can get to the point of all this. Chop, chop", a loud, booming voice announces. Marius opens his eyes and is overwhelmed by the sheer amount of gold in his environment. Then he tries to find the origin of the voice. The golden hall leads to a giant apparatus of machines and wires. In the middle: a single huge skeleton with a few tendons still attached and some remaining skin. Marius feels like he knows the being, but is absolutely sure, that he has never been here before. He'd remember, probably.

"Hey, eyes up here", the booming voice announces again. This time the head of the skeleton shifts and looks at Marius with a clear intent. The voice announces: "I have lived for many millennia and I have called out to many billion people through my psychic powers. Don't make this so hard. Just ask, what I want and I can go back to tripping Inquisitioners down stairs and surfing Space Hulks into the homeworlds of those dumbass Chaos deities."

Marius gets to his feet and looks around. He slowly realizes that this is the Golden Throne and he is in the presence of the Emperor himself. Marius falls to his knees and forms the Aquilla in front of his chest. The Skeleton produces an exasperated sigh and says: "Oh, you poor idiot. I am not an Inquisitor. I need to be quick. I do not have enough energy to spare, to keep this direct talk for long." "Emperor. How may a simple servant like me help you?", Marius asks, still kneeling.

The Emperor answers right away: "The ship you are on has collected fragments of my soul for almost 10 millennia. I would just take them, but most of them are very considerable and fragile. Take them to Holy Terra, so we can integrate them into the Golden Throne and stop my psyche from breaking apart even more and eventually failing the Astronomican. That shouldn't happen."

Marius nods eagerly. The projection starts to fade, but then grows stronger again. This time the skeleton is standing next to the throne and is caressing a bunch of cables. The Emperor talks to the cables: "Commander 1734. I looked into minds and records. You are a favourite of my only daughter. She likes you a lot and I feel inclined to like you too. You are under probation. Break her heart, hurt her feelings, lie to her or do anything to insult her and you will find out, why Khorne does not play "The Nutcracker" with me. Are we clear?"

Marius looks up in shock, but before he can say anything, the hallucination starts to fade away. The voice of the Emperor calls out one last time: "Look into the ship's vault. You'll find the cargo." Then the hallucination dissipates.

Marius opens his eyes just in time to see a bucket of cold water falling towards his face. It is ice cold water, like single digit cold. Marius darts up and headbutts Lady Victoria, who was kneeling next to him. She laughs, the Marines laugh, but the Terminator, whose fist knocked Marius out, offers Marius an embarrassed smile, before she runs away. It's a slow movement, but steady in its direction. Marius stands up, feeling drowned.

In the confusion the Emperor's order returns to Marius head. When the Primarch hugs him smiling, he feels tempted to take a step back, but stops himself. When she let's go, he asks: "Lady Victoria, may I see the ship's vault?" "Why?", She retorts. Marius answers: "You might be transporting pieces of the emperor's soul. He just visited my dreams, making himself very clear about wanting the pieces ASAP." The Primarch looks surprised and says: "You saw him too? I thought he only does that with Space Marines." Marius grins and opens his arms like a feudal lord: "Surprise, I am a Space Marine in disguise."

The Marines around him look at him with surprise and ask: "Really?" Marius notices, that the joke failed and gives up, hanging his head: "No. That was supposed to be a joke." Victoria shakes her head and admits: "That's a shit joke really." Now Marius laughs: "I know, sorry. The Emperor just showed up, threatening to play "the Nutcracker" with me, if I am not careful. I don't want to reflect on what that means." "That's what he said?", Victoria asks. Marius replies: "That's what he said."

The corridor falls awkwardly silent and the people look around, deeply worried about the next moment. The Primarch thinks a long thought. Then she looks up and motions Marius to follow him towards the command centre of the ship. The bridge is mostly empty. Many spots are manned by Servitors or Mechanicus cultists, there are 3 of the necessary six Strategist and only 1 Tactician remains. The weapons command station is manned by a drunk Adeptus Sororitas cannoness and the Master of Engineering is a Tech Priest, with several hundred mechanical arms, that are operating half of the necessary stations in his section of the bridge at once. At the same time, he is reading a relic with large images in them. The entire bridge is working very slowly. The holographic projector shows the status of the ship. It is f*ked. Marius wonders, how it can still work, without being blown to pieces. Several decks have been depressurised, 4 starboard batteries have been destroyed and the torpedo launchers on all sides are ruined. The ship needs extended maintenance and repair. Only the Factorums of Mars still produce the parts for these hulking Battle Barges. Marius wonders, whether they could even enter the Warp, but the alcoves for the Astropaths are empty. No Warp jump available anymore.

Marius turns around and asks the strategists with brutal honesty: "How, in the Emperor's name, could you break a ship of this size so much?

The Tactician brushes past the strategists, who are starting to engage in linguistic diarreha. The Tactician gives a short summary of the events, that led to major damages of the ship. The damage was so extensive, that they wanted to ask the colony on the planet for help. When it turned out that the Eldar on the Planet were attacked by Dark Eldar, they offered to help, but were in over their heads. The assault fleet that arrived next was able to destroy the ships of the Dark Eldar, but it cost everyone except for Marius their lives.

The Eldar offered to loan out a Farseer to guide the human vessel through the Warp. But they wanted to meet a ship master first or maybe even a Captain of the Imperial Navy. None of us is going to get the promotion." "Get the Primarch to do it. That shouldn't be too hard", Marius throws in. The tactician thinks, that that is a good idea. The strategists want someone else to take care of the events. The overseer of the Engineers is fine either way. He stresses that the gellert field is the only system that isn't wrecked and in dire need of stuff and repair. The weapons officer reacts with a burp to any question.

The high-ranking officers are busy fighting with one another, yelling and accusing each other of stupidity, until Primarch Victoria loses her marbles and yells: "Shut the fuck up!" Marius who unfortunately stood next to hear, feels the ringing in his head. He staggers two steps to the side and sits down in the closest chair. He leans back, when suddenly the chair springs to life, showing dozens of screens in his peripheral view. The giant hologram changes, revealing a strategic map of the solar system. The scans even highlight the destroyed pieces of equipment and ships in orbit. A ripped frigate of the Imperial Navy is drifting in orbit of one of the three moons, looking like a giant can of MRE, filled with hundreds of souls. The Heavy Cruiser is a burnt corpse that is drifting motionless in a field of debris, venting the last bits of its atmosphere into space. The ship that Marius deployed from, a battleship, has been beaten mercilessly. The engine section is shattered, the starboard batteries detonated, plasma fires are burning all over the armour and the beacons of Marius wingmen are bleeping in the debris of the battle. Most of the beacons are sending flatlines. One shows an indicator of dying, the others are merely present on the screen.

Marius is entranced by the sight of a strategorum of this size. His stare is broken, when Victoria puts one of her giant hands on his shoulder and asks: "What did you do?" Marius darts up and backs away from the chair. It's the data throne for the Captain. This will get him to court-martial for sure.


End file.
